Strange Object spotted over Leeds UK?

I was wondering if someone could help me. About 10.00pm tonight, me and my boyfriend witnessed a strange burning object moving slowly in the sky. It seemed fairly low for a plane, but was still high above the roof tops. It was big enough to notice, but it wasn't huge and didn't have a defined shape. The fire then died out after about 5 minutes of watching it and then it floated off into the distance and we couldn't see it any more.

I don't particularly think it was a UFO of the extraterrestrial kind, but it completely baffled me and I wondered if anyone here has an idea what it might have been.

At first I thought it was a hot air balloon, but the fire was on permanently, and it didn't have any defined shape and had no real colour (just opaque, and then blackish when the fire died out.)
It can't have been a normal balloon because it would have popped, but I'm at a loss as
to what else it could have been... it's motions weren't jerky, it was just floating through the air (reminded me of how a parachute flys, but it obviously wasn't one.

Anyone have any ideas?

Chinese lanterns are quite popular nowadays.

Video

Is this an explanation?

From your general description, it sounds like a Sky Lantern

TC

I live in Leeds also
It sounds like you saw a Chinese lantern.
Last summer i saw a strange sight though. It looked like the north star, except it was moving across the sky in a very strange way, it seemed to be very high in the sky, much higher than a plane. After about 5 mins the light stopped in the sky and started to fade away, kind of like it was getting higher in the atmosphere.
The Mirror news paper also had an article around Xmas of people seeing a similar light, except it was supposed to have been "shooting" across the sky.

Most probably a Chinese Lantern,
best way to find out is to enquire
if there was some celebration going
on somewhere fairly local at the time.

[edit on 24-5-2009 by smurfy]

I think I may possibly have found the culprit on youtube. I checked for lantern festival and there weren't any, but there is a video (posted tonight) of a bloke setting a lantern off near me.

If it wasn't him, from the videos I've seen it probably was one of those - I'd never seen one before, so you can understand the confusion lol.

And Skunk2, my first thread here ever was on something very similar. Few years back now, I was just picking constellations out when I was waiting for the bus, one star suddenly started to move and then just faded out.

I was in Leeds myself same time but only saw the odd plane or two coming in to land at Leeds/Bradford airport,but i would say chinese lantern from what you have described and turned up on the tube,